I could be fitter if I worked out more. There are higher fitness mountains than the one my route climbs. These are the mountains that elite athletes, professional athletes, and many age-group competitive racers who are far fitter than I am have climbed. But these are mountains where the routes are both long and steep and demanding. The people who climb them have defined themselves largely based on their ability to reach these goals--career endurance athletes who are proving something to themselves and others. In a way I share something with these folks. I am driven. I am committed to achieving this goal of mine--which within it includes a myriad of other epic goals.

Although I spend less time training, training is a very big part of my life. It doesn't take a big part of my time, but the time I spend doing it is very important. My 10 or 15 minute training sessions are like very critical appointments or business meetings for budding entrepreneurs. They cannot be missed regularly without significant consequences. Equally key in developing a high level of fitness using this approach are regular (3-4 times annually, at a minimum) focused efforts that mark the edges of my ambition. If you want this training to prepare you for marathons, you actually need to run marathons.

For me, because my ambitions are rather broad, these efforts are anything from 6 hour races to multi-day missions done as quickly and/or competitively as possible. The challenges of a 50+ km run are significantly different than those posed by a 500+ km multi-day adventure race. Physical and mental preparedness for one will not necessarily translate into physical and mental preparedness for the other. If you want both of these extremes and everything in between to be in your wheelhouse (as I do), you'll need to 'practice' accordingly. But if the focus of your goals is on a particular discipline, then obviously the focus of your big efforts should be too.

Another consideration is that more is not better here. Big efforts require significant recovery time, probably more so than you think. While this is true in general, it's even more so when your training methods primarily involve high intensity work. It will often take a full two weeks of rest and active recovery before I am able to return to and complete high intensity efforts at what I call baseline levels after even a solid 6-9 hour race where I've succeeded in my work of leaving nothing in reserve. Some of my longer events have had me 'on the couch' for upwards of a month. It may be hard at first to contain the beast in your head that will be itching to get back at it--that says that you're just being lazy and need to start training again. But if you're not able to match your baseline performances (to be explained) you're simply wasting your time and should choose active recovery--hiking with the family, long fun bike rides, gentle yoga, or even easy body-weight strength training as a way to stay sane assuming you're like me and can't suffer doing nothing.

Because of the intensive recovery required, I will also caution against trying to do too many 'big efforts' in a year. I've found that if I want to be at my peak, mentally and physically, then I need at least 6-8 weeks of solid HIIT training leading up to my event or mission to make sure I'm at that high level of baseline fitness that allows me to perform how I want to. When you add this time onto the recovery time between events, I'd suggest that no matter how eager you are--if you share the simultaneous goals of being able to 'do anything' and 'do it well'--you limit these big efforts to every two months or so.

In summary, this training guide will be really hard to follow because the workouts will be so hard individually and even doubly so taken on a consistent basis. And, although an ordinary week's training volume will only be an hour or less, protracted efforts of 6 hours to several days will be needed every 8 to 16 weeks or so to maximize your potential for taking on anything that comes your way.